Some 12,000 alligators put the “Oh!” in Okefenokee and inspired cartoonist Walt Kelly’s “Albert the Alligator.” Photograph by Thomas H. Shelby

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Cartoonist Walt Kelly, considered a genius by his peers, found a perfect world for his characters in Georgia’s Okefenokee Swamp. From 1948 to 1973, Kelly entertained newspaper readers with the adventures of Pogo Possum, Albert the Alligator, and many other beloved characters. Kelly was both a humorist and satirist, and loved the creative use of language. His constantly talking and arguing creatures mixed Elizabethan English, black dialect, and foreign accents. The strip was acclaimed for its artistry, and many professional cartoonists consider “Pogo” to be the best-drawn cartoon ever to appear in a newspaper.

This lone amphibian is part of a raucous Okefenokee chorus—with 20 species of frogs and toads. Photograph by Thomas H. Shelby

Kelly set his strip in the Okefenokee without having seen the area. In 1955 citizens from Waycross, Georgia, convinced him to visit. Afterwards, Kelly worked real towns into the strip, which frequently expressed concern for the Okefenokee environment. Kelly’s most famous cartoon, produced for Earth Day 1971, featured a depressed Pogo staring at trash in his swamp and saying, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

—Richard J. Lenz

Read “At Home in the Okefenokee,” Lenz’s account of a three- day family canoe trip across the swamp, in the January/February 2000 issue of TRAVELER.